These are four short vignettes from a road trip I recently took which I hope members will enjoy.

The Missing Beer & the Misappropriated Beer

The beachside resort I stayed at used to have a restaurant but today it is no longer in use. The kitchen that used to service the restaurant, however was still functional, and the manager allowed me use it as long as I cleaned up after myself. This was great because it allowed me to run out to the local farmer’s markets, buy produce and kibitz with the market vendors just like back home. Not to mention I also ate at a fraction of the cost of eating in fancy schmancy restaurants.

So on the evening I arrived, along with visiting the farmer’s market, I stopped off at a local grocery store (not 7-11) and bought 4 beers (Leo, of course). Two I drank that evening, and the other two I put in the ice cold refrigerator cabinet in the kitchen with the plan to polish them off the following evening. The next day, however, when I returned late in the afternoon from a hard day at the office swimming and playing in the water, I found that one of my beers was missing. The manager, a very pleasant woman in her late 50’s, came into the kitchen and apologized, explaining that her son who was visiting from Bangkok had inadvertently drunk one of my beers, and was at that very moment buying more beer to replace the bottle he had taken. Of course, I told her not to worry about it, but to tell the truth I was a little miffed because I knew that the replacement beer would almost certainly be nowhere near as cold as the beer which had been chilling all day in the ice box.

A short while later the son arrived back from the grocery, showed me the beer he had bought, and then went inside to put them in the refrigerator. When I finished my first beer, and went into the kitchen to get another, I saw that the son hadn’t just replaced the one beer he had drunk but had left two beers in a plastic bag right where my beers had been. For some reason, I assumed that he had replaced the one beer with two beers as a gesture of contrition, or in an effort to atone for his social gaffe. So when I had finished my second beer, and not wanting to rebuff his generosity, (I read somewhere this is considered bad manners in many Asian cultures) I cracked open the third beer, poured half of it into my glass, and went back outside to drink it.

The moment I went outside, the son sauntered over from where he was sitting, and asked me why I was drinking his beer. It was pretty embarrassing because I really didn’t have a good answer. When I offered to give him the bottle I had already opened, he looked at me somewhat indignantly and said, “You pour half in your glass already. I think better you go buy new one for me.” Which of course I had to do. So I had to walk 10 minutes down to the store to buy him another bottle, and to make matters worse, I forgot to put the already opened bottle in the frig so when I got back to the resort it was as warm as you might imagine.

Is This the Way to Myanmar?

My map had this thin red line on it which indicated that there was a road which not only went up into the mountains but actually crossed over into Myanmar. Of course I knew there was no way I was going to be able to cross into Myanmar on the spur of the moment. For one thing, I had none of the necessary visa stamps. And for another thing, from the very outset the road was so narrow it was obvious that it couldn’t possibly lead to a border crossing up in the hills. My main reason for going up there was to check out the scenery which was very green and lush, but I was also curious what kind of people lived up in those hills.

So several times, just as an excuse to meet people, when I saw someone outside alongside the road, I pulled over and asked them if it was possible to get to Myanmar on this road. Some of the looks I got were pretty priceless. You could tell they would probably get a good laugh over dinner telling a story about the dumb farang who thought he could cross into Myanmar.

One house I stopped at turned out to belong to a fairly high ranking Thai military officer. He was pretty no-nonsense, and I got the impression that he might have been under a fair amount of work-related stress. Definitely not the normal easy-goingness of most Thai policemen. In addition to confirming that I couldn't get to Myanmar from there, he told me that there really wasn’t a problem in that area with illegal immigration because the mountain passes were so hard to traverse.

Another house I stopped at was high up in the mountains. By that point, the road was little more than a motocross trail, and I decided it was best to stop and turn around. As I was making a U-turn I saw a wooden house on tall posts with a wooden ladder in front. Sitting outside on the second story porch watching me as I got out of the car was a gray haired man who I guessed was in his early 60’s. He said he was a rubber tree and coconut farmer, and also had a small lime grove next door to his house. While his two pit bull/Thai dogs weren’t particularly pleased to see me, this guy really welcomed the company and we ended up having a long chat which I will tell you about next.

Two Thai Men With Two Medical Problems I Had Never Heard of Before

The rubber tree farmer related to me that one morning about three months earlier and out of the blue, he woke up to find that his lower left calf muscle had lost all of its strength. He had no loss of sensation in his leg, and the doctor said it wasn’t a stroke. The farmer seemed to have no theory about what had caused it. The doctor was using a muscle stimulator which sent electric shocks into the muscle. The farmer had to use a three pronged cane to get around because the leg muscle problem had thrown his balance off a little bit. But he did say that the problem was slowly getting better. My advice was to get a second opinion if it didn’t get better soon. When I asked him how the economy was these days it was obvious I had brought up a touchy subject. He let out a bitter laugh. “40 baht a kilo,” was all he said, an apparent reference to the price of rubber. I guess that pretty much explained everything, and I didn’t ask him to elaborate further.

Another Thai man I met at the beach told me he was 56 and was forced to retire for health reasons. He said his bones produced too many blood platelets which made his blood overly viscous. He had to take aspirin and stay hydrated as much as possible. There was medicine he could take but he said it had too many side effects. We had one of those wonderful conversations where he spoke entirely in English, and I spoke entirely in Thai, and neither of us missed a beat.

Thailand’s Going To Be Just Fine

Two things happened on this trip which made me feel more optimistic about Thailand’s future.

First, I met Pun, one of the most precocious 3^rd grade girls I’ve ever met. She was the niece of the resort manager, and right away upon meeting me, launched into her repertoire of English phrases. “My name is Pun. I am eight years old. Where are you from? How are you? I’m fine, thank you, and you.” When she told me she was 4^th in her class, I applauded and told her I could tell she really enjoyed learning. Then I asked her if she had a secret plan for becoming number one in her class. She held her breath as she thought for a moment and told me she did indeed have a plan. I leaned down close to her ear and asked her in a conspiratorial whisper if her plan involved hitting anybody in the head with a lead pipe. She looked at me to see if I was joking, told me ‘No!, and started laughing when she realized I was joking. She was fascinated by the GPS system in my car, and watched me intently as I programed the system before I left for the day. Later that afternoon when I returned to the resort she had already gone home, and I didn’t see her again.

But there was something about her social skills and emotional intelligence that made me think that when Thailand finally overhauls its education system and transitions from an agricultural economy to a fully diversified one, Thailand’s human resources will be a force to be reckoned with on the world stage.

The other thing that happened which really made me feel that Thailand’s future isn’t as bleak as some would like us to believe is that I came across two troops of boy scouts and girl scouts from the local high school. Armed with brooms and garbage bags they were doing a beach cleanup. I talked to a couple of the teachers who explained that they were really trying to build environmental awareness and that climate change was a growing concern of the government.

So you see, there is hope.

Moved to Expat Life Forum.

Thailand is full of hope , we are far too ignorant to see it ! As farangs we only see the essarn hillbillies or the highso bangkok brigade ...... Trust me there is a far more sophisticated and cultured middle class then we like to admit !

My dearest friend, welcome back, we missed you.

I do admire your skill of writing and your way of thinking.

And yes there is a lot of hope and good intentions in Thailand but most of the people can't see it.

Especially if you listen to some members on TVF